National News

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Heard Voices: Report

by Kate Seamons, Newser Staff

(NEWSER) – The Boston Globe yesterday published the results of its five-month investigation that delved into Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and the very first line of the 18,000-word piece presents an attention-grabbing claim: That Tamerlan "started hearing the voice as a young man. ... It frightened him, as the voice inside grew more insistent. It may in the end have directed him." The Globespoke to a close friend who says the voice told Tamerlan to do certain unnamed things; he reportedly told his mother "that he felt there were two people living inside of him." But the piece is much more than just this revelation: It suggests that much of what we believe we know about the Tsarnaevs and their motivation is incorrect. Among its claims:

The Globe suggests the Tsarnaevs did not flee to America because they were persecuted in Kyrgyzstan; rather, it indicates that father Anzor's tobacco trading business stepped on the turf of Russian gangsters, who possibly threatened him. A former co-worker of mother Zubeidat heard a different story: that Anzor "tried to prosecute" Russian mobsters over illegal trading; members of their group allegedly kidnapped Anzor and tortured him for a week, then severed the family dog's head and left it on their doorstep.